Alexandria

Tuesday 27th January 8.30pm

We are hurtling across the Nile Delta in one of the fast 'Spanish' trains (hand me downs from Spain complete with bull and bullfighter motifs) back to Cairo after a long day in Alexandria. A bit of a pilgrmage really, carrying my copy of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, now nearly re-read after many years. I read it first as a young teenager (and still have the lovely old Faber paperbacks) because Alexandria is also the place where my parents, Emily Garner and John Mitchell met at the end of the war and returned to Scotland to be married.

Its still a lovely city, a bit more ritzy and cleaner than Cairo, delightful weather today, fresh air off the Med and the swell crashing against the rocks. We walk the streets, have coffee and treats at Delices Patisserie (Banana Split for Tessa, croissant with olives and cheese for me) but are denied the beer at Trianon's (where scenes from 'Ice Cold in Alex' were filmed) as it has no licence. But we ride a tram, get caught up with thousands of students streaming out of the University, visit the Museum and the incredibly impressive Library opened only in 2002 - it has to be one of the world's most stunning library buildings.

I know nothing of my parents time in Alex but have my picture taken on the Corniche where they most certainly will have walked. We look for 40 Faoud Street where Durrell lived with Eve Cohen ("Justine') but despite our new ability to read Arab numerals (the alphabet is quite a different matter) we cannot locate it so a picture in the street has to do.

After sunset its back to the station and once again we are immediately seized on by a decrepit and scarred porter who insists on showing us to our carriage and then handing us over to the train guard to show us to our seat - its baksheesh all the way despite our best efforts to pose as independent travellers requiring no help we are lambs to the baksheesh slaughter. This morning at Cairo we declined a Porter to have a coffee first but he was at our side as soon as we stood up, insisting on taking our one small bag and showing us the carriage. He declined my small wad of one eqyptian pounds
'Not enough, it should be 10 pounds'
'But there is only one small bag'
'There are two of you'
Further protest is useless, if we are lucky we get away with 50 pence or less, if unlucky as in this case its over a pound.

Tomorrow its the Pyramids!

Walk like an Egyptian

We have spent today walking round Cairo looking at lots of Mosques, shabils, mausoleums, markets and looking at life in the very oldest part of Cairo.

We have crossed lots of roads,( hence the title) and are begining to get the hang of this death defying business, once or twice we have managed a road all on our own, with out the protective shield of a bunch of locals.

We have seen fantastic feats of cycling. Cycling in this city should mean you are removed from the gene pool fairly quickly, but we have seen young men weaving in and out of the trafic with very large trays of bread balanced on their heads, they move so quickly we havent managed to get a photo of one yet, but we will keep on trying.

After our four hour walking tour of the old city we returned to the hotel for a short feet up and then went to meet our young traveling companions from the day at Wadi Rum, Penny and Corrin. We had a lovely strong Americano coffee in a a European style cafe with them and echanged travel news. They are extremely nice, funny girls, full of verve and a thirst for adventure, so it was a real pleasure to meet them again. When we left we watched them drift across the road like real locals. We have used the Metro though and fathomed out the arabic script.

Tessa

ps sorry for lack of photos but this pc at the hotel does not want to accept the memory card from the camera

First Class?

Well if this is first class I would hate to see Second or Third! This was our disappointed reaction as our overnight train to Cairo pulled into Luxor station after 11pm last night. Instead of the rather swish train we came down from Aswan on - where our second class reclining seats had buisness class legroom and comfort - our supposed first class train pulled in dark and dusty and without lighting. As we were led down the corridor we realised that the carriage was simply a series of dark boxes (as it turned out the lighting was only temporarilly off) each with six seats which at first sight looked comfortable with lots of space between them but the whole carriage was dark and tatty in the extreme. We had a compartment with two young Koreans (who wondered why we were not on the very expensive sleeper train with normal grown ups) and a couple of young Eqyption guys and after that initial feeling that these seats were OK we actually tried to relax and even sleep in them - oh dear why oh why did we not take the day train!

By dawn and after some intermittent sleep gained sometimes at the expense of the back or neck or some other part of the body we were looking forward to reaching Cairo. After a tantalising glimpse of a distant pyramid (which turned out to be far south of Cairo) we took ages to crawl into this city of 27 million people - think of it, London is only 7m! We finally reached Cairo about 10am, rang the hotel contact we had been given in Luxor and got the cab driver to telephone for instructions. The Cairo traffic has to be seen to be believed - as the guide book says its the chariot race out of Ben Hur played with ageing Peugeots and Fiats, no car is unscathed.

We have however quickly understood how to cross the road, the local people just drift across the lines of traffic (which is generally slow moving as rush hour starts about 8am and finishes by midnight) so what you do is place some local person between yourself and the oncoming traffic and kind of hug close to them without seeming too rude and tripping them up - they after all have some mysterious ability to avoid death whilst we know that being hit by a car will hurt!

Been to the Cairo Museum, Tess has travellers' tummy, bound to happen and she is dealing with it personfully.

Brian

Sites

Today and yesterday we have been doing sites of great historic interest. The first day we went to the Luxor Temple for sunset, pretty grand, but the next two days' visits made the Luxor temple look quite small and restrained.

Yesterday we went in a small minibus with a charming guide called Al a Din and his driver who was called Mohammed. We were picked up at our hotel at 8.15, along with three young men from Armenia (you meet so many different nationalities whilst traveling), the bus filled up at other hotels and then we all went off to - Valley of the Kings to visit tombs and to two temples and a couple of huge statues in the middle of a site that is being excavated. The stuff we are seeing is so overwhelmingly large, decorated and beautiful that I haven't got enough superlatives to describe it, so I am pretty much going to leave it at that.

Today we got a service taxi out to the temple of Karnak which is the most vast site, we spent about two and a half hours wandering around and again it defies description, vast forests of pillars that are immensely tall. Carvings, obilisks, pylons (these are huge gate ways) and enough broken bits to keep an army of archaeologists working for many years to come.

We walked back to Luxor town along the corniche (no small change, so couldn't take a service taxi and we are not good at haggling yet) We went to the Luxor museum and were very impressed. It is quite expensive to get in, but very interesting with some absolutly wonderful small sculptures and lots of interesting things like bows and arrows, architects drawings, 3,500 year old bits of linen and all sorts of other stuff.

On the way back to the Hotel we called at the train staion and managed to get 2 first class tickets to Cairo tonight. We catch the train at 11 pm and arrive in Cairo about 7 am, ticket price 10.00 English each. Yesterday we tried and a very glum man told us no tickets, today a different man, all smiles, tickets available, when do you want to go?

Tessa

Hotels - rooms with no views

What sort of hotels have we found? Well in general we have done very well. We have sought out budget hotels, although not necessarilly the very cheapest and have paid between 7 english pounds and 35 pounds per night including breakfast in all but the Aqaba hotel. Those in Egypt have been cheaper (as with everything) than in Jordan and have varied considerably in what they provide and how much of it is working. Only our one night in Aqaba could rate as a run down place, it called itself the Hospitality Palace and whilst hospitality was on offer, palatial it wasn't. But even that one was in a great postion. Best of all was Dahab, a large balcony and sea view, the sound of wave lapping.

Sound or rather noise is a big issue of course. Many places are in noisy lanes and streets and with the exception of Dahab all have been close to at least one and sometimes several Mosques - we are well used to the 5am call to prayers, the verses end in the morning with 'Prayer is better than sleep' - not something we have found agreement to. We also suffer from cockerels, the Aswan hotel was surrounded by collapsed mud buildings (the result 6 years ago of an unpredendented 24 hour rain storm) and these were occupied by sheep (quiet) and chickens and cockerel (not so quiet and getting in the swing of things even before morning prayers) How delighted we were to find that the flat roof across from our current room has chickens and a cockerel in fine voice!

We suffer from short sheets, pillows that are in fact carefully selected large desert rocks covered in a pillow case, sometimes lack of hot water, but little else bothers us. On arrival here in Luxor at the excellent and friendly Princess Hotel on a small lane we lay down for a short siesta before tackling the Luxor Temple - the local community kindly laid on a demonstration of motorcyle rallying, car horn testing, childrens games and loud debating among the grown ups , plus a little metal working - but it does get quiet later and this really has been a pleasure to stay at, lovely people (run by a Frenchwoman Emmanuel and her Eqyptian husband).

Everywhere has been clean and in most places there are roof top or lobby places to sit and chat with other travellers. We don't envy those people in the posh hotels one little bit (except for the pillows - we saw a group getting off a coach and boarding one of the Nile cruisers all clutching big fluffy pillows and found ourselves thinking about a quick pillow mugging).

Brian

Aswan to Luxor

Well here we are again, happy as can be!

Our last day in Luxor was really busy, up early and off to find a boat to take us across to the west bank of the Nile, we were found by Mohammed, a 48 year old Nubian man with few teeth and some English and agreed a price for a ride across the river to the Saint Simeon Monastery and then back up the river to the Tombs of the Nobles.

We puffed up a sandy hill, past lots of camels and their drivers (Brian a bit averse to riding on animals since his brush with the mule) and then about 1 km up a rocky, steep hill to the Monastery. This is an enornous structure, looking a bit more like a fortress than a place of worship and contemplation and largly made of mud bricks. We have been told that it almost never rains in Aswan, so mud bricks work fine and last for centuries and you really would be amazed at what can be built with a lot of nud and some straw!

After our walk round the monastery (we had been up to the top, in and out of various bits while a German group listened with rapped attention to a long talk by their lecturer\guide) we went back down to the boat, weakening only for a moment and buying 2 white cotton shirts fron a charming salesman on the way. Off up the river about half a mile and another dusty slog up a very steep hill, there were actually some steps, but the dessert was making a spirited attempt to reclaim them (how many men with how many brushes would it take to keep them free of sand?) . At the top we fought off the offers of guiding and wandered round looking into deep dark holes and reading stuff off boards and from our guide book. It may seem abit mean to fight off guides, but our experience has been that they dont know much or perhaps more charitable cant express what they so know in anything like comprehensible English yet still expect to be given not inconsiderable ammounts of money.

Back down to Mohammed and his boat and a lovely, cool and breezy trip back across the river, it about 11.30 and quite hot by now. Lunch under the trees in a small park and back to the hotel for a rest. In the evening we watche the most fantastic sunset that I have seen for a lonfg while, took part in an impromptue English tutorial whilst watching the fantastic red, golf, orange clouds in the Faayer Gardens. It is a popular spot and where we has first met our friend Ismael, I got talking to a Teacher of Chemistry and had to help him with his pronunciation and word choice/meanings. Off to the expensive but very interesting Nubian museum, fantastic building, a present to the Nubian people from the Egiptian governemet as a "sorry for building a dam and drowning your history" . We then joine Ismael for tea at his house, went off for a late meal at a very nice returant about 10.00 English for as much as one could eat. Packing and bed.

Tess

Today we are in Luxor, an early train from Aswan (one that foreigners are not supposed to catch but the hotel assured us that noone would stop us and that the train conductor would simply add a bit of baksheesh to the proper fare - it was still only about 8 pounds for the two of us) wonderful journey along the Nile Valley, sometimes on one side the desert rocks and hills and the other side of the track the green irrigated fields and irrigation ditches and endless palm trees, in every field you could see one or two people working, no machinery and all working is attended by groups of egrets.

Arrived in Luxor to the inevitable scrum of taxi drivers, one Tourist policeman trying to hold them back and we agreed a (no doubt too high) price and off we sent - down back streets, picking up the taxi drivers father, then another man, and still in unpaved streets full of goats etc - we were pretty suspicious when we arrived at The Priness Hotel and suggested it could not be the right one (I thought it was on a major road) but the bloke from the hotel came out to reassure us and the place is just great - never felt so warmly welcomed. The place is in fact owned by a Frenchwoman Emmanuel and it is in her office that we are currently using the internet.

Off the the Temple for a late afternoon and sunset visit and then tomorrow we join a small group for the Valleys of the Kings and Queens (we have so far declined the hot air balloon experience!)

Brian

Aswan

Today we have been exploring the islands in the Nile at Aswan but our first stop was to visit Ismael who we met last night whilst walking alongside the Nile, we were up by the Freyar Gardens which overlook the river and got chatting to Ismael who is a retired diving instructor and yoga teacher and with many other skills. He invited us to visit him this morning and so we were searching a dusty road off the Corniche, were helped by a shopkeeper and sent down a further dusty lane with goats and small children playing. Finally a door opened and there he was smiling and welcoming us to his home - a very old three storey building with an open stairway with rooms off it. We discovered that he often invites those he meets to visit him and has a page a day diary in which visitors express their thanks for his hospitality - including massage and yoga advice.

We then took a ferry over to Elephantine island, and no sooner had we got off the boat andwe met two men each claiming to be the headman and offering his services as a guide, and at the Museum and adjoining site we fought off enough offers of guiding to manage to enjoy exploring the amazing ruins under our own steam. This is a beautiful place and the views from the islands are truly amazing with the steep west bank rising into sheer desert only a few metres from the river edge.

After wandering and getting thoroughly lost in one of the Nubian villages we arrived at the other side of the island to see if we could get a ferry boat across to a small island with what looked like a very fine Botanical Garden. Below us was a moored boat and its owner Agassi persuaded us to take his boat over and that he would then wait at the exit ferry steps to take us back - he said the season was very bad and he was hardly getting a fare a week, so how could we refuse.

The Gardens were fantastic, well laid out, very shady and cool in what for us was a hot day, we got a cheap ferry back, the guy could not change a 20 LE note (noone here has any change we have seen only two coins in all of Eqypt and noone selling any service has any change to give so its a nightmare) but in this case I just gave him the 3LE notes I had and he had to accept them and I am certain that the local people pay less than that anyway.

Brian

Hurghada to Aswan

Today is Monday, Isay that more for myself than any readers we may have, becuse it is easy to loose track.

Yesterday we spent a quiet day in Hurgada, on a sunny but very windy beach. it is quite a holiday town, a lot of big resort hotels allong the front so not much public beach and I cant say it would be on my top 3 holiday destinations list, still it was ok.

In the early evening we collected our packs from the very nice people at the hotel , no news from the Police about the bag, so we wended our way to the bus station to wait for the 10,30 bus to Aswan. It gats dark at about 5.30 here and after dark all the little streets light up with chains of lights above shops and it all starts to look very foreign, but there was no hussle, come to my shop stuff in the small local shop streets. Our wait was enlivened by two things, an extreemly cheap meal, about 4 English pounds for both of us and a table groaning with bread, chicken , rice, salad, two sauces for the rice and tea. All this achieved with no common language.

Our meal over we walked back to the bus station, seeing lots of three wheeled bikes selling nuts, bread and something that neccesitated wheeling round a small charcoal fire, lots ofshops to mend things and loads of people shopping and eating. Back at the bus station we met Amr, an Egyptian man off back to Aswan to see his family after 45 days of 12 hour shifts as catering manager at the airport. He invited us to sit with him at the cafe and took us under his wing, helping us not to panicabout the late bus and the fact that we couldnot tell where any of the busses were destined for etc etc.

The bus journey through the night was eight hours with a couple of leg stretching stops, the second one was at 5 am in time for morning prayers, much washinfg of feet before prayer in the roadside prayer room. As the sun rose about 6.30 we caught our first sight of the Nile and it really is wide and surrounded by green areas of intense cultivation ad palm trees which suddenly stops and becomes dust dry, yellow earth.

Bid farewell to Amr at his village before Aswan, of which more later.

Tess

Crossing the Red Sea

The four of us (we are travelling with Vera and Marianne who are from Holland) have ourselves tightly wedged in our seats, eyes tight shut with two of us trying to be distracted with our mp3 players. We are hurtling across the Red Sea in a small catamaran from Sharm el Sheikh to Hurgarda on the African side of the Sea. Having left just before sunset in the calm waters of Sharm we are now in mid channel, in the complete darkness, bucking and rocking, careering from swell to swell, shuddering with the engines roaring. Things have fallen off the table, some people have staggered to the toilets at the rear, some have not made it, one woman is stretched out on the seats tended by some crew and other passengers, one large woman is stretched out on the cabin floor. Our advertised ninety minute glide across is turning into a three hour marathon, we are all just hoping for this to end, we know people pay money for this sort of thing at Alton Towers but we feel like we have been shot from Sharm, aimed at the African coast to skim over the heavy seas - it feels far from safe, no wonder there was so much doubt about the ferry running today (we thought we were going to have to divert via Cairo), clearly bad weather and plenty of it!

But worse was to come.

Arriving at Hurghada the four of us pile into a taxi, with the Dutch girls large packs I am squahed in the front seat with my pack the other three in the back, the suspension bottoms over every bump. We get to the bus office for Luxor and Aswan only to discover its not the right place, the taxi has disappeared and it is then that we realise that my small black day bag I had with me in the boat was not unloaded from the taxi's boot - no doubt not seen by the driver in the darkness. It has my camera in it, our guide book, my diary and a few other items including my prescription sunglasses.

A moment of despondency but quickly recovering phlegmatic mode we ask another taxi what to do - no problem if we had the taxi number which we don't. I ask him to take us to the Tourist Police which he does regaling us of tales as his days as a professional footballer, the police HQ is in fact a long way away (this place stretches for 30km along the coast!) near the airport. So we are dropped, enter a small side door, explain to the guy on the desk our problem and he takes us through to an office. There Office Agmad listens carefully to what has happened;
'Are you accusing the driver of anything?
'No, it was an accident we are sure, it was dark, he would not see the small black bag'
'What was he like? A black man like me?'
A bit difficult to answer this, I just say 'an Egyptian from Luxor'

A lot of form filling and further details later (we have Officer Agmad, another officer dealing with my passport and a younger civilian on the job) we have our carefully stamped report form. Both Officers had a lugubrious and world weary air (they had seen it all before and far worse of course) but we were dealt with quickly and with politeness. We left with Officer Agmad's phone number promising to let him know where we were staying - we decided we had to stay to at least give an outside chance of the bag being returned via the Tourist Police.

So out in the street, wide and empty, no guide book or map or any idea of where we were! As ever a taxi driver drew up and we asked to be taken 'to the town centre and to an inexpensive hotel'. Another long drive along big highways with short cuts, once down an umade road but eventually we get to lights, hotels and restaurants. The taxi driver has phoned a friend and he stops to pick him up to show us to the hotel. So to the Hotel Snafer, we knew nothing of it, where it was but the room was a reasonable price, it was clean and the disco down the road stopped around 11pm.

Down to the lobby in the morning, no news of the bag of course, our first task to consult the wall map and ask the hotel guy to show us where we are - we had in fact realised from our rather wonderful balcony view of an intensely aquamarine sea that we were right on the coast - and in fact our taxi driver has got us to a good spot.

Then a minor miracle - there on the lobby desk in a pile of book swops (mostly German) is a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Egypt! Liberated originally from the San Francisco Public Library, resold via a second hand bookshop ('stained throughout' it says in the front) we really don't care what state it is in - we have a guide book again - eyes for the traveller!

Lazy days continued

Today has been hot and quite humid and I havent done very much but sit and read. We had a lovely day yesterday, it was breezy and very sunny and we walked along the shore to the south of our hotel fro a couple of miles. We found that the hotels peter out after a bit and those that are there look really nice but very quiet, some are actually closed and at least one was only partly built and no work seemed to be happening on it.

We walked to a large circular concrete construction and saw from the information board it was called shade, we watched some divers going in the water, all kitted up in wet suits, it looks such a performance but apparently this is a fantastic place to dive, the reef is wonderful and very extensive.


We ate at our new friend Ahmeds place, a kebab, stuff off the spit and some salads. While eating we were entertained by his very small daughter being thrown about by one of the other guys there, tossed up into the air and squeeling with delight. Like Jordanians, Eygyptians seem to be very fond of children and everyone seems to keep an eye out for them.

Later in the evening we repaired to the tented area in front of our hotel, slowly drinking a beer and talking to some Australians who were approximatly our age (rare) and we bid farewell to our American fellow traveler Jenny, who was off on an overnight bus journey to Cairo.

Tessa

I went snorkeling today, there is a place called Lighthouse at the other end of the bay with easy and very direct access to the coral reef so for about 8 pounds I hired a wetsuit (very fetching as you can see in one of the pics below) and snorkle gear and had a couple of hours with the multi coloured, striped and iredescent fish - also fascinating to see the divers below in the sharply deepening reef with their silver lines of air bubbles rising up - all rather exciting in a small way.

We leave Dahab tomorrow (with some regrets, we are living very comfortably and quite cheaply and need never come home!) but about noon we will go off to catch a bus to Sharm el Sheik and then a ferry across the Red Sea to Hurghaba, from there we hope to catch an overnight bus to Aswan, although may have to spend a night at Hurgaba depeding on the bus times. We hope for an easier ferry journey (no international border is involved, both ends are Eqypt) but will let you know from Upper Egypt!

And just get on a Easyjet flight and get yourselves to Dahab - thoroughly recommended, yes there is the "mixture of hippy and beduoin ambience" and all that but its a great place especially in the quiet time as now.

Brian

Lazy days in Dahab

Aqaba to Egypt

We are now in Penguin Village in Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba in Egypt - yes normal life and traveling are temporarily suspended whilst we chill out in this laid back holiday resort full of camps, hotels, restaurants, divers and backpackers. We have a wonderful hotel room with a huge balcony overlooking the sea all for 20 pounds a night, a restaurant on the sea shore with carpets and cushions on which we can while away the daytime and nightime - its a lot warmer here, we have lost those cold desert nights - getting here however was not as much fun as being here.

After Wadi Rum we went by taxi to Aqaba, shared with the two girls from Leeds Univ who then went back up the road to Wadi Musa for Petra - our driver Mohammed got carried away with chatting and hand waving to loud arabic music and was pulled in by the police for speeding - his instant fine was 25 dinars - his fare from us!

After a rather tatty hotel in Aqaba (but great food in a market stall) we left the next morning for the ferry to Neweiba in Eqypt - walked along to the harbour only to be assailed by a large group of taxi drivers informing us that the passenger ferry now left from 12 kms down the coast towards the Saudi border - despite an attempt at haggling (they had us and they knew it) we had to pay the 5 dinars to get taken there. At the terminal nothing was clear, we trailed about getting tickets (at 70 dollars each more than double what we had expected), getting our exit tax paid, getting our passport checked and finally left in a large hall to await departure. Eventually with people suddenly disappearing we realised we had better move and found that people had boarded a shuttle bus to the ferry - a fast catamaran. There were about a dozen of us foreigners, the rest were Eqytian workers returning home - possibly far more than usual as the land crossing at Eilat had been closed. Interesting to stand in Aqaba - you can see three countries Jordan, Israel and Eqypt. We had to leave our packs in the cargo and vehicle bay and were then corralled in a foreigners area whilst the Eqyptian immigration official stamped everyone else's passports - including women in Burkas who had to lift their veils to show the official but no-one else their face.

Eventually the ferry left Aqaba, we had to sit and wait to have our passports checked, there was anyway nowhere else to go so we got to know each other, a Korean girl travelling alone for one year, Sebastien from Italy, Jenny from the US, Benjamin an organic farmer from Australia, running his business from his mobile and travelling the world with no end date in mind.

The ferry arrived at Neweiba but we were not allowed off, Sebastien and the Korean girl had by now apparently missed their overnight bus to Cairo and we looked in danger of missing ours to Dahab but finally we were allowed off streaming off the cargo bay to cries of Mohammed! Mohammed! from a seething group of porters with large metal trolleysm in fact they were calling out the names of the workers who had hired them to carry the huge loads of tvs, carpets, even a wc that they had bought in Jordan - and it just happened that a large proportion of them were called Mohammed.

All of the foreigners (except Tess and I who already had our full visa) had then to find doorways and offices at which to pay for visas, collect visas and passports - it was chaos but was eventually achieved and we all moved off the the arrivals shed - there was further chaos as the goods were scanned by security - but we were invited to put our packs through straight away and so were were finally through the bureaucracy. Sebastien discoverd a bus for Cairo in the port area we were told to find our Dahab bus outside the gates - and of course there was no bus! There were eight of us going to Dahab now surrounded by a noisy group of taxi drivers - Benjamin took control and began bargaining with the right degree of utter disgust at the prices first quoted pointing out how many of us there were, eventually we got an offer of half the amount - 30 egyptian pounds each (about 5 pounds) so were piled into minibus for the 45 minute ride through the most desolate landscape we have ever seen - just piles of bolders and small hills - welcome to the Sinai desert!

As the sun went down we reached Dahab, piled out of the van and madeour way to the Penguin Village which had received votes from those with guide books and previous experience. It was a relief to arrive. No more travelling for a few days - the sun is hot and the evenings are balmy, think of us lying around on those carpets and cushions and around the wood fire in the evening!

Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum was so much more interesting and exiting than I thought it would be. We arrived in a small mini bus taxi with three other people, two very jolly girls from Leeds University who are studying Arabic in Cairo and were on their Christmas holiday and a technical journalist from Spain, called Manuel.

We all got transfered to a 4x4 and driven from the visitors centre to the Bedouin village where we were transfered again into an ancient pickup with 2 bench seats in the open back. Our driver and guide was a young Bedou man in a long white gown, baggy trousers and the headwrap thing that everyone here wears. Off we set, clinging on for dear life as he bounced along dessert tracks. As we left the village behind the hugeness of the dessert hits you, there are enormous outcrops of rock, very steep and high and swathes of sand, some brown, some yellow, red close to the rocks, all undulating all over the place.

We drove a bit and then stopped to look at sand dunes, drove a bit more and stopped for a look at some rock art, then a wonderful lump of rock with a natural arch at the top. Our guide was always keen to get the girls to climb/explore with him!! It was really good though. The most scary bit was after we stopped for tea when the guide encouraged the girls to try driving. The vehicle was without brakes and driving in sand is a skill that needs practie, so for those of us on the back it was a bit of a white knuckle moment.

We saw Laurence of Arabias house and his spring and ended up sitting in a Bedouin house being ernestly converesed with by a 10 year old Bedouin boy while we waited for the taxi.

Fantastic .

Tess

Two days in Petra

Some short notes on our visit as this pc keeps losing our entry.

We set off early today and were in the Siq before 8am, we had the place almost to ourselves but with our fingers tingling with the cold as despite the sun being up the nights are verycold. We reached the Treasury (the carved building you all know at the end of the Siq) even before the camels arrived grunting and regurgitating. We moved once again through the incredible and extensive site of weathered and carved sandstone, sometimes difficult to tell which was mand made and which was natural.

Falling in with Mohammed with the gold teeth leading his small son, two donkeys and a mule we chatted and he must have been a good if quiet salesman because we found ourselves bargaining him down from 50 dinars to 30dinars (still a great deal of money) to go up to the monastery on his donkeys - its one ofthe great buildings but practically inaccessible except for the very fit. So with Tess on the donkeyleading the way andme on the mule off we set.
What an experience, up a winding and very narrow gorge with rocks andsome steps we clung on trying to relax, we were the only ones on the route and eventually got off the animals fora final short walk. The monastery (we will post a pic if we can manage it) is incredible and once again we had it to ourselves. We walked back down to a Bedouin woman and her daughter who had a blackened kettle on a fire and made a place for us under the tent whilst she brewed tea for us.

Setting off back and clinging for dear life it has to be admitted we made our way down - until my mule lost his footing and tipped me off - fortunately onto the rocky track and not down a gorge, i landed not too heavily, just a few cuts on my hands and covered in dust. At the bottom (sweet relief to be off that mule i can tell you) we bade farewell to mohammed and sat down - near a Red Crescent 4x4 so i gave them a bitof work to patch up my handswith iodine and plasters. They finished by taking our picture, giving us a biscuit saying Welcome to Jordan and Donkeys are dangerous - now they tell us!

Brian

The assent was ok, but going down was very scary. On the way up Mohammed showed us th cave in which he was born, though now all the bedou live in a village beyond Petra, built for them by the King in the 1960,s, about 2000 people live there and Mohammed and his wife have 6 children. Childeren go to school fron aged 6 to 18 and all learn English,though Mohammed (aged 35) learned his English from tourists.

Later we met 2 small boys who tried to sell us postcards, we refused, shared our biscuits with them and ended up with the gift of 1 postcard and a small rock and Welcome!!

Tess

Day 1 in Petra

A wonderful day in fantastic Petra. Ihave just typed a whole entry and lost it, so I am going to leave it at that. Blue sky, slight breeze, glowing stone, few other people. Many donkeys, some camels, lots of children selling postcards and rocks.

road to Petra

We took the King's Highway today, 300 kms south from Madaba to Petra, driven by our trusty driver Ahmed who we seem to see every day and today all of the day! There is no public transport on this route and as we travelled down it we realised why. There are the boring sections on top of the plateaux with the usual untidy villages and towns along it, the pickups full of Bedouin and their goats but there were also the most spectacular gorges to travel down and then up again and incredibly beautiful views from heights of up to 1,200 metres. The sun was bright and hot but the breeze was chilly. Our only stop was at Karak to visit an old Crusader fort later captured by Saladin. After a visit (and having picked up the inevitably guide - they are always useful but difficult to avoid) we rejoined Ahmed for mint tea and falafels, in fact we could live on them (well we almost have been), we ate and drank with the ringing Friday sermon being loudly broadcast all around us and then pressed on with each village also ringing with the sound of the sermons. One place also had a small protest march of young people protesting the slaughter in Gaza.

We reached Wadi Musa - the small town for Petra during the afternoon, taken to a hotel that
Ahmed knows where we were greeted with more mint teas and a cheap room rate - that can't be bad and helps pay for having to take a taxi most of the way down Jordan! Tomorrow its the Rose Red City for us, in fact probably for the next couple of days.

Brian

Some photos (we hope)

Tessa's feet in the salty sand of the Dead Sea - sorry this is the first photo, but very slow getting any loaded up and this at least will give you a laugh!

Madaba Jordan, Thursday 8th Jan

Here we are in Madaba, the end of our second day and it only took 15 mins to work out how to change the instructions on the computer from Arabic to English & get started on this blog.

Madaba is full of c Churches and Mosques & is famous for its mosaics. We have sem some very beautiful & incredibly old stuff. We visited all th major sights in the town yesterday, walking about the vry confusing streets, made more confusing bcause of course all the street names are in Arabic, with the odd one in English. Still we saw St George's church across the road from our nice, basic hotel. We were alerted to the church by the very loud bll ringing at 7 am, followin the several calls to prayer during the night. The other places we saw were the town museum, the archeological park, Church of the Apostles (huge mosaic), while walking round we had to take great care as the pavements are mad, hole, fissures, lups, bumps some completely dug up, all sorts of obstructions, you certainly cant walk around with your head in the air.

Food great, people very friendly and unhassly, there seems to be a law that all boys under 16 must say hello to tourists.
Tessa

Today we got Ahmed the driver who brought us here from the airport (along with David an American on his way to Baghdad) to drive us to Mt Nebo and then onto the Dead Sea - where we floated as swimming is quite impossible, even getting your feet down onto the sand is difficult and just one quick taste of a salty finger has your mouth puckering up. On the way down the mountain to the Sea we passed a surprisingly large number of Bedouin tents and camps and large flocks of goats, sheep, some camels and donkeys all tended by single shepherds plus a few dogs, seeing and hearing the flocks with their bells looked like something straight out of biblical times. What is not out of those times or maybe it is) were the number of police road checks we had to get through (we are of course right next to the West Bank border) but with Ahmed with us there were no problems in getting through.

Tomorrow we are taking a minibus to Petra all being well - we will update you from there. Thanks for your comments which I see are there, we will read them as soon as we have successfully got this blog posted, and we might also attempt to get some photos added.

Brian

On our way

Heathrow Airport: We are finally on our way. We leave a snowy Cambridge and with the London newspapers predicting minus 10 degrees. After what seems like weeks of getting the house ready, fostering the cats out and a myriad of organisational tasks we are finally really on our way. Thanks to all friends, neighbours and family who joined us for our 'At Home' on Sunday, it was a great distraction and highly enjoyable.

We had perhaps the poshest taxi driver to take us to the station, a woman with a cut glass accent, listening to Radio 4 in her very large merc - this is luxury we may not experience for a while! And it was nice to meet David Mander (Brian's business partner) for a coffee and a bit of cheque signing at St Pancras station.

We are exciting interest on the train and at the check-ins here at Heathrow with our minor amount of luggage (Tessa's bag is a mere 7kg, mine in a bit over 9kg), everyone is very interested (sometimes a bit doubtful) that people can travel for five months in this way - we will see and you will hear.

So at Heathrow terminal 1, after some extraordinarily slow service in the Cafe Rouge we are watered and fed and now ready to get through security - mind you the man with the sub machine gun across the way with his trigger finger twitching wildly is not what you want to see if you need to get into a relaxed frame of mind.

All the best and our next blog entry will be from Jordan.